Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is an evidence-based minimum set of items aimed at helping authors to report a wide array of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that assess the benefits and harms of a health care intervention. PRISMA focuses on ways in which authors can ensure a transparent and complete reporting of this type of research. The PRISMA standard supersedes the QUOROM standard.

The aim of the PRISMA statement is to help authors improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA has mainly focused on systematic reviews and meta-analysis of randomized trials, but it can also be used as a basis for reporting reviews of other types of research (e.g., diagnostic studies, observational studies). PRISMA is not a quality assessment instrument for systematic reviews but it may be useful for critical appraisal purposes.

In 1987, Cynthia Mulrow examined for the first time the methodological quality of a sample of 50 review articles published in four leading medical journals between 1985 and 1986 She found that none met a set of eight explicit scientific criteria, and that the lack of quality assessment of primary studies was a major pitfall in these reviews. In 1987, Sacks and colleagues evaluated the quality of 83 meta-analyses, using a scoring method that considered 23 items in six major areas: study design, combinability, control of bias, statistical analysis, sensitivity analysis, and application of results. Results of this research showed that reporting was generally poor; and pointed out an urgent need for improved methods in literature searching, quality evaluation of trials, and synthesizing of the results.

In 1996, an international group of 30 clinical epidemiologists, clinicians, statisticians, editors, and researchers convened The Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses (QUOROM) conference to address standards for improving the quality of reporting of meta-analyses of clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs)

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